For the past 40 years, Western parents have been relentlessly gaslit into blindly submitting to the most grotesque Marxist social experiment since the Great Leap Forward.
Before venturing into print again on modern parental practice, please take a little time - 10 or 20 minutes will do it - to bone up on the history of parental practice and child rearing in Western societies. Forget about other societies for the moment until you get a better grip on your own. Start by checking the internet on “baby farming” in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The institution of ‘wet nursing’ is an interesting and related area of enquiry in the same time frame. Then have a look at the history, over the same period, of state care of unwanted children, abortion and infanticide - expedients that enabled parents over to deal with children they could not afford to rear.
Then, perhaps, return with greater understanding to your concerns about the continuing need for reform of our present day, vastly improved, institutions of child rearing and childminding practice.
In response to your question, ‘Why would you trust…etc ?’ From my own 60 yrs experience of entrusting my children and grand children to crèche, preschool and primary school - I entrust them to these institutions because I believe their staff to be well qualified, kind and competent, and because the children will benefit immeasurably from their care and guidance. Childcare continues to improve though constant scrutiny, public and governmental pressure are necessary to ensure that improvement continues. Consider, for example, the decline and disapproval of corporal punishment of children by parents and in schools over the past 50 Years.
I was out of place in my cohort a few decades back when most everyone I knew put their kids in crèche, perhaps not every day, but at least a few. They thought nothing of it. We definitely have been primed in the modern West to believe it’s all a good thing. Definitely not good for families.
Dear Lushington,
Before venturing into print again on modern parental practice, please take a little time - 10 or 20 minutes will do it - to bone up on the history of parental practice and child rearing in Western societies. Forget about other societies for the moment until you get a better grip on your own. Start by checking the internet on “baby farming” in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The institution of ‘wet nursing’ is an interesting and related area of enquiry in the same time frame. Then have a look at the history, over the same period, of state care of unwanted children, abortion and infanticide - expedients that enabled parents over to deal with children they could not afford to rear.
Then, perhaps, return with greater understanding to your concerns about the continuing need for reform of our present day, vastly improved, institutions of child rearing and childminding practice.
None of those disprove - in fact, they reinforce - my essential point: 'Why Would You Trust Your Toddler to Strangers?'
'People did bad things in the past, sometimes' doesn't seem much of a counterpoint to people doing bad things now.
In response to your question, ‘Why would you trust…etc ?’ From my own 60 yrs experience of entrusting my children and grand children to crèche, preschool and primary school - I entrust them to these institutions because I believe their staff to be well qualified, kind and competent, and because the children will benefit immeasurably from their care and guidance. Childcare continues to improve though constant scrutiny, public and governmental pressure are necessary to ensure that improvement continues. Consider, for example, the decline and disapproval of corporal punishment of children by parents and in schools over the past 50 Years.
I was out of place in my cohort a few decades back when most everyone I knew put their kids in crèche, perhaps not every day, but at least a few. They thought nothing of it. We definitely have been primed in the modern West to believe it’s all a good thing. Definitely not good for families.
Bullied families surrendering their precious offspring to a literal nanny state ... I can't think of anything more dystopian. Great article!